


Holden's Enemies

by lapsi



Series: Holden's Series [4]
Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: Bad BDSM Etiquette, Breathplay, Frottage, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Infidelity, Light Bondage, M/M, Mentions of Murder, Mentions of Suicide, Mentions of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-03-21 01:49:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13730550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapsi/pseuds/lapsi
Summary: After a catastrophic interview, the Behavioral Science Unit are left picking up pieces.





	1. Chapter 1

Tench seems haggard with rage. As soon as he’s back on his feet, he’s gritting and grimacing as if Kemper’s outburst was no more than an annoyance. He examines Holden just like he’s one of their imprisoned, scrutinised specimens. Holden is attentive too, hovering by his ex-partner hawkishly for any signs of delayed shock, any unsteadiness.  
  
But there’s nothing; Bill has his walls rebuilt and concreted. They don’t hang around California medical, don’t wait around to chat to the smug guards about interview procedure. Tight-lipped and stoic, Bill blows off Holden’s questions. He stalks off towards his hire car, leaving the younger man jogging after him.  
  
“At least tell me what triggered the--”  
  
“He planned on murdering you today,” Bill asserts. He’s barely replying to Holden. It’s an outburst of long-ruminating ire. “Exactly like I fucking told you, boy. ...you might just be the dumbest piece of shit to ever carry an FBI badge.”  
  
Holden exhales, allows the defensive retort to leak back down his throat. He takes another second, trying to meet Tench’s eyes and failing. “I am truly sorry that I endangered you.”  
  
“Are you? _Truly_ sorry?” Bill scoffs.  
  
“I am. If Kemper had touched you I would have--”  
  
“You know, I wish you could’ve heard that tape. The way he was talking about you. I did myself no favours interrupting your little tryst.”  
  
“I get it now. I’m sorry.”  
  
Bill folds his arms, leaning back on his car. “Not sorry enough.”  
  
Holden cracks. He tilts his head, countenance slipping to confrontational. Swallowed retorts worm their way back up. “Well, how about you try and get me fired? Then we’ll see how sorry I’m feeling.”  
  
That stumps Bill momentarily. Holden examines the angle of his unimpressed frown, and sees concealed guilt.  
  
“Holden,” Bill starts to murmur, earnest. But he catches himself. “Maybe you could ease up on the attitude. Considering that I just saved your life.”  
  
Holden looks away. The sun is still sickly hot on the back of his neck. There’s a bird perched, deliberating, on the sky high barbed wire. Contemplating a descent into the prison yard. Holden wishes he could scare it away from California Medical. Do they shoot birds here?  
  
“Nothing?” Bill asks.  
  
Holden turns. He doesn’t watch Bill drive away.

 

 

Holden can’t bring himself to go back inside the prison to place the phone call Wendy is expecting. He’s not certain that he’s safe to drive, but he starts the car and peels off out of the prison’s parking. It’s further than he realizes to a phone booth, so he pulls over at the very first one he sees despite the dilapidated surroundings. There he loosens his tie, glad to feel obedience from his fingers. No quivering helplessness. He’s steady slotting coins in, and dialing her number, even though worries begin to plague him when he hears her picking up.  
  
“Wendy. Sorry I didn’t call back sooner. There was a situation.”  
  
“Jesus, Holden,” she blows out. It is undisguised relief.  
  
Holden at once is throttled with emotion, which he’s sure is post-trauma vulnerability. He grips the plastic receiver tighter, letting it almost rest against his cheek. He knew, _he knows_ that Wendy cares whether he lives or dies. (At least for the sake of the study.) His work precedes him, even in terms of value to humanity. But just then, Wendy sounded concerned about _Holden Ford_.  
  
“Again, I’m sorry to keep you waiting.”  
  
“Are you okay? ...is Bill?”  
  
Sentiment is replaced by cold annoyance. “He’s fine. But what on Earth could Bill Tench be doing in California, I wonder?”  
  
Wendy drags out a sigh. “His concerns have been vindicated, haven’t they? Tell me about the ‘incident’.”  
  
“He went to you before he booked a flight? What, to ask your permission?”  
  
“I can wait for Bill and ask him--”  
  
“One of two things happened. Either, Kemper realized that he might come across poorly in a segment of interview I unfortunately missed, or…” he trails off, staring at a very young couple walking down the street towards him. He’s back on topic quickly, rearranging the narrative. “Or, Bill confided in him that he intended to use the tape as proof that my interview manner was wanting. Ed took it upon himself to protect my job, and smashed the tape recorder. Well, in either scenario he rendered the tape impossible to listen to. I have it, and I suppose forensics could have a try, but it tore in a few places and warped badly where the plastic casing--”  
  
He’s cut off by Wendy. “How did he even get his hands on it? Wasn’t he restrained?”  
  
“He wasn’t restrained. ...he’d stepped around the table by the time I returned from our phone call. Oh, I suppose that’s a third option. He’d decided to murder Bill, and when I interrupted and he deemed his odds unfavourable in a scuffle, he thought very quickly on his feet.” Holden is trying to sound detached. He can hear his throat fighting, hear the echo of panic in his breakneck fumbling. Bill could have died if he’d been a minute later, stopped to pick up a coffee, said an extra few sentences to Wendy. He can’t repress the horror. _Bill was right. I shouldn’t be working for the FBI._  
  
Wendy considers. “I’m sorry I suggested this interview. ...if you felt uncomfortable, you could have told me, Holden. I would have listened.”  
  
“I didn’t think he was dangerous.”  
  
Wendy doesn’t bother to voice her disbelief. The extended silence is brutally judgmental enough. “I’ll speak to you when you get back. Your flight is soon. Come to the office.”  
  
Holden’s exhaustion and instability feels insurmountable. “Wendy, I don’t think I’ll make it this evening--”  
  
“I’m not asking.”  
  
The line clicks.

 

 

Holden falls into microsleeps as he waits, folded arms, at Gate 11. His chin jerks against his chest each time he startles himself conscious.  
  
His newspaper has tumbled off his lap and now rests against his leg. The half-eaten bagel, unwrapped from the bright orange takeaway paper, lies decrepit on an empty seat beside him. He should have just ordered a coffee. It would have been less trouble. Especially as he thinks he might throw up.  
  
He’s loosening his tie even further when he recognizes Bill. Walking with his eyes front and center, purposefully ignoring Holden, finding a turned seat where no acknowledgment need be made. Holden scowls and scoops the paper up, unfolding it as deliberately as a Japanese dividing screen. He should have anticipated Bill being on the same flight back to Virginia-- early afternoon, allowing for the full length of the interview and enough spare to stop for lunch, return a hire car. It’s the efficient choice, so of course Mr. Efficiency chose it too. He glares at the article that Tench is now hidden behind: Feinstein Rallies in Run-up. The mayoral election, he deduces. He reads no further in the next ten minutes he holds the paper at face height.  
  
There’s a boarding call and he decides to get the jump on Bill. He drops the paper and the food scraps into a garbage can and hurries to the forming queue, second in the line. At least his back will be turned. More excuse not to notice Bill. He makes a concerted effort not to fidget, not to give away any indication of how antsy this proximity has him. He’s toward the back of the plane, which means he has to stare intently out of the window lest he meet Tench’s eye as he boards. Not very many passengers on the daylight flight. He thinks he sees the back of Bill’s head several rows ahead. _Stupid fucking haircut._ Then he hates himself for being so immature. _I could have gone up and reasoned with him like an adult. Instead, here we sit. Two silent, stubborn fools trapped together in a metal box for the next several hours._  
  
Holden feels devastating nostalgia for road school. Falling asleep on red eyes side-by-side. Never quite close, always together. But comfort or no, fatigue is inexorable. Holden immediately slumbers, slumped in his empty aisle of airplane seats.

 

 

Someone is gently shaking him and he lurches backwards into his seat like a crash test dummy.  
  
“Sir. The flight is--”  
  
“Right, sorry,” Holden mumbles, wiping his dry sticking lips. The rest wasn’t nearly enough. His body feels cemented in place, aching and unwilling to move. Ahead in the emptying plane, he sees a figure poised in the aisle. One snapshot of Bill’s unguarded expression of concern. The moment’s gone; Bill Tench is surly as ever as he pulls out a stowed bag.

 

  
  
Holden must ignore Bill again as they stand at the luggage carousel. He perfectly composed now. He swoops in to pick up his suitcase and lets his eyes brush uninterested over the crowd Bill lingers within. His self-congratulatory saunter towards the taxi rank is interrupted by his name called from across the long terminal.  
  
“Holden.”  
  
Not Bill, a woman. He doesn’t recognize the voice, but he knows the face. Nancy. _Ah, fuck. Fuck fuck fu--_  
  
“Bill didn’t say you were with him, but of course you were. What happened? He was so-- Brian, this way-- he was so cagey on the phone. Are you okay?”  
  
Holden feels blistering panic eating away his vocal chords. He was a hostage negotiator. He can sit opposite a psychopathic mass killer and calmly adopt whatever affect the interview calls for. But speaking to this woman is simply not happening. He loathes his own weakness. The pause is too long, but eventually he blurts out a handful of words. “What did Bill say?”  
  
“You know Bill. Not very much. ...one of the inmates you were interrogating got violent,” she says, slowly.   
  
A guess, Holden can tell from the exploratory tone. At the very least an extrapolation from an incomplete data set. She’s not quite correct, but it makes him wonder what information Bill had supplied. “Bill’s okay,” he reassures her, fingers twisting nervously on the handle of his suitcase.  
  
“The fact that he asked me to come here…” Then she seems to regret exposing Bill, perhaps registering that Holden is still Bill’s colleague. She shakes her head, and presses the yellow-tinted sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. “Brian, you remember Holden, don’t you?”  
  
The boy looks up with dark eyes that seem horrifyingly knowing. Holden assures himself he’s just projecting, and smiles down. Then the smile drops. Behind Nancy’s back, Bill approaches on a warpath. 

Holden passes foot to foot, limbering up his body for escape. “I should go, I have to get back to the office--”  
  
“Were you getting a taxi? We can drop you most of the way. It’s en route.”  
  
“Really, it’s fine,” Holden begins to reassure as Bill closes in.  
  
There’s no explosion of outrage. Bill half-kneels down beside Brian, scooping him into a hug. “Hey, little man.”  
  
“Bill,” Nancy chides at once. Brian’s expression flickers uncomfortably. Not so big on hugs. Holden can relate to that. But she steps forward, as Bill stands apologetically. Her arms go around his waist.  
  
Holden averts his eyes. His next breath is sarin gas, scorching his internals. He feels like an animate corpse, barely supporting himself upright. He can’t unpack the poisonous emotions. It just hurts.  
  
“Thank you for coming out. Thank you so much,” Bill is breathing into the embrace.  
  
Holden cringes, turned enough that he hopes neither catch it. “I’ve got to grab a taxi, I’ll see you both--”  
  
Nancy jumps in warmly. “Nonsense. I said we’d drop Holden back into town.”  
  
Holden doesn’t need to look over to know Bill is grinding his teeth and trying to hide it.  
  
“Maybe Holden will give me some answers about what shook you up so bad,” Nancy mutters, sidling away from Bill and taking Brian’s hand again. “Do you see the plane taking off there?” she asks her boy, stepping ahead.  
  
Bill steps in front of Holden before he can follow. Absolute silence. Bill’s black glare is warning enough, with how he leans into Holden’s face unpleasantly. Intimidation that should be terrifying, but Holden doesn’t have fear left in him. Bill needn’t worry, though; Holden’s not going to cause a scene and upset Nancy. The older man strides off, suitcase rattling with speed. His deep voice is again pleasant, joining Nancy in trying to engage Brian.  
  
Holden barely comprehends as they blather inanely about pilots and runway lights. He follows a few paces behind the happy family, ordering his next few hours into a set of performative normalcy. Manageable. Then he’ll get home, alone, accountable to nobody. And he’ll drink himself most of the way dead.  
  
Bill’s hand brushes Nancy’s. Holden bites the inside of his cheek until he draws blood.


	2. Chapter 2

“You can sit in the back with Holden, okay?” Nancy murmurs   
  
Bill touches Brian’s hair protectively as he rounds to the driver’s side, spinning the keys on his finger. “How did that school thing go? The sports day?”   
  
“I got a ribbon, but I only came third,” Brian says quietly, finally relinquishing his ‘stranger silence’. He climbs into the car and sets about fastening his seatbelt under Nancy’s watchful eye.   
  
“Third is still a ribbon,” Holden contributes. “It’s a medal, in the Olympics.”   
  
Bill scowls in the rear view mirror, and notices Brian watching him for cues. He turns in his seat, still trying to tune Holden out. “You did great, kid.”   
  
Brian looks only at Holden now. “Are you a secret agent like my dad?”   
  
“Just a regular old agent.”   
  
“Why aren’t you in school?”   
  
“Well, I’m… I’m twenty-nine. I finished school awhile ago.”   
  
Brian looks over suspiciously, folding his arms. “Do you have a badge?”   
  
“Am I under arrest?” Holden asks, folding his arms too.   
  
Brian stares back unamused, until Holden pulls it out and hands it over.   
  
Brian examines it with uncritical determination. “Where’s your wife?”   
  
“Wife? ...oh. Debbie was just my girlfriend. Only for a little while. We broke up.”   
  
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Nancy says immediately. It seems unsympathetic, paired with the wide smile at how talkative Brian is being.   
  
Bill hates that it’s Holden that Brian has decided to get so inquisitive about, but, God she has a beautiful smile. He doesn’t recognise the sunglasses, wonders if she dressed up nice to come pick him up. Maybe she’s buying new clothes so she can start dating again. His mind is right back onto those divorce papers they still haven’t talked about.   
  
Brian hands the badge back without comment and stares out the window. Nancy tries to catch his eye and fails. _Conversation over for the next three hours._ Bill rubs his eyes and starts the car. 

 

 

They’ve reached the highway before Nancy tries to anew: “So, Holden, they need you back at the office straight away? You don’t even get to go home and change after being stuck on a plane all the way from California?”  
  
“There’s an active case I’m working on. ...I don’t think anyone minds me being a little creased,” he murmurs, looking down at his suit.   
  
“Oh, no, you look good. Really. So they don’t need Bill?”   
  
“It’s not _really_ Bill’s job any more. He was just helping me out with a tricky interview,” Holden reassures quickly. A little too quickly.   
  
Bill squints in his mirror suspiciously. Is Holden going in to Quantico to throw him under the fucking bus? He doesn’t know how Holden could blame him for Ed’s outburst. ...he was being confrontational, he supposes. Or Holden might start making shit up. But if it’s his word against Holden, he should be in the clear, even after a few concessions to the OPR earlier in the year. Nobody at the FBI is sticking up for Holden.   
  
But there’s one more witness to the day’s events. Kemper himself. Ed would side with his friend Agent Ford, if anyone came asking.   
  
Nancy tunes the radio, deep in thought. A second of static, and then a French folk singer. Bill is relieved to have the conversation over. His anger is burning out and being replaced by guilt. If Nancy knew what he and Holden had done, she wouldn’t consent to being so close to Holden. She’d be hysterical with disgust at him, at Bill. No, he can’t have her go through that, as farcical as the polite conversation really is.

 

 

He’s pleased that the silence is largely maintained for the remained of the drive. One little snippet of Nancy asking if Holden had seen a new Sci-Fi film when they drive past a billboard, but the response is lacklustre with Holden's absolute dearth of pop-cultural awareness. Then it all petered out. As they’re pulling up to Quantico, and Bill is stowing his badge wondering what security thought of his full car, he registers why. Nancy smiles into the back seat fondly, and softly murmurs: “Guess we better wake him, then.”  
  
Brian and Holden are both asleep in the back seats.   
  
Bill dips his head in agreement, looking at Holden’s chin resting on his shoulder, forehead pressing into the glass. Holden was _just_ asleep on the plane. It’s troubling, and makes him think back to Holden’s request that Bill stay until he could sleep. It seems forever ago, but Bill’s sure that scrutinised close enough, he’d see traces of the bruises from that night. He’s seen PTSD before, during service, so it’s naturally the first conclusion he jumps to with Holden’s odd and erratic behaviour. Insomnia? If he’s that fucking scared of Ed, then why did he try to go visit him alone?   
  
“Holden,” he prompts.   
  
Holden jumps awake, flickering back and forth between Nancy’s smile and Bill’s suspicious analysis. “Sorry.”   
  
Nancy reassures at once. “I know how it is with travel. Bill always comes back dead on his feet. It’s just that we’re here. Your office.”   
  
“Right,” Holden acknowledges disjointedly, looking about, and then sits up quickly. He sees Brian asleep, and whispers. “Thank you for the lift.”   
  
“You should come over for dinner again some time. I’m sure Brian would like to see a secret agent around the house.”   
  
Holden gives a smile, which could pass for authentic, but Bill can tell it’s forced as hell. He exits the car with Holden, opening the trunk and hefting Holden’s suitcase out before he can try. His hand stays gripped on the handle.   
  
“So. You’re going in to talk about the Atlanta case?”   
  
“What do you want, Bill?” Holden asks in a hushed voice, folding his arms.   
  
“Some modicum of reassurance you’re not about to screw me over on this would be a good start.”   
  
“I don’t have a track record of trying to get colleagues fired.”   
  
“I wasn’t going to tell them anything but the truth.”   
  
“Neither am I,” Holden, prosody thick with sarcasm. That makes Bill want to clock him. Bill sets down the case too hard, closes the boot too hard, and walks back to his seat trying to calm himself down.   
  
“Is everything okay?” Nancy asks tentatively.   
  
“Would you mind waiting? I think I should be in that meeting.”   
  
“Well, sure, but--”   
  
Bill swings the door open and takes off after Holden. 

It’s no time to catch up. Holden is forced to follow the meandering paved route, and even though he’s double timing it Bill simply shortcuts over the grass. Quantico is never empty, even on a Saturday afternoon, but there’s significantly less people in on weekends and the parking is about a third of usual capacity. There’s thankfully nobody directly ahead to see the petty footrace. Bill reaches Holden and they both slow to a haughty march. There is no hint of acknowledgment of each other’s existence until they hit the elevator, and Bill presses the button for basement.   
  
Then, Holden quietly explodes. “There’s no call for witnesses for the defense, Bill. I’m not going to drag your name through the dirt.”   
  
Bill sneers back in return. “I was the one who was there when Kemper snapped, Holden. Or are you that fucking cocky you think you can psychoanalyze today’s events better than the man who saw it all unfold?”   
  
Holden says nothing as the elevator shudders off. When his voice rises, it’s softer, nearly beseeching. “If you’re going to get me fired, then just… just say that, so I don’t have to come down to be humiliated. Do the decent thing. And I’ll do the _decent_ thing by you.”   
  
“What the fuck do you mean? You’re not going to do anything for me.”   
  
Holden glares at the panel of buttons.   
  
“What’s the _decent_ thing you’re going to do for me?” Bill tests, a nasty chasm opening up below his stomach. He’s motion sick in the sluggish elevator. “Holden, I wasn’t serious about you...”   
  
“‘ _Hanging myself in the privacy of my own apartment’_?” Holden finishes. “What do you think I’m going to do, Bill? If I get fired? What the fuck else do you think my life amounts to except this work?”  
  
“What the _hell_ , Holden,” Bill curses, then his voice is softer, more urgent. “If you’re trying to manipulate me into--”   
  
“Forget it,” Holden says, as the elevator opens.   
  
Bill steps out, Holden doesn’t.   
  
“Forget I said anything. As you said, you’re the witness they need for today’s events. I’m going home to sleep.”   
  
Bill ignores every reassurance. “Are you serious? If you’re serious I’m going to drag you to the closest fucking mental hospital and lock you in a padded cell for the next ten years of your life,” Bill hisses.   
  
“What a great incentive for honest testimony. You should work in law enforcement.”   
  
“Holden, dammit,” Bill says, stepping back inside the elevator and jabbing the close door button.   
  
Holden shrinks a fraction, and suddenly looks ready to try to flee the scene.   
  
Bill reconsiders tactics. “Holden, I’m not going to try to get you fired. I know you’re not going to try to see Kemper again. Now… tell me. Were you serious? You’d commit suicide if you lost your job?”   
  
“Bill,” comes Holden’s distressed reproach, but Bill is obstinately unhelpful. “I don’t know what I’d do, if I couldn’t do this work any more. It’s my purpose. My… raison d'être.” 

The pretentiousness would make Bill laugh, if it weren’t such a deathly serious topic. Holden Ford and his inappropriate intellectualizing. He contemplates the difficulty of getting Holden committed to an institution (if Kemper could talk his way out, Holden would be able to in a matter of hours) and rubs his eyes. “Holden, I might be angry at you for endangering yourself, but it’s because… this is _all_ because of how much I care about your well-being. And how destroyed I’d be if you got hurt on the job. Just hearing Kemper talk about you today damn near gave me a heart attack. And this is coming from someone who was, who _is_ still very fucking angry, okay?”   
  
Holden is disbelieving. “You want to get rid of me so your family can go back to--”   
  
Bill interrupts gravely: “Nancy is divorcing me, Holden. She only picked me up because I was a wreck when I called after Vacaville. Nancy loves me but she’s never going to forgive me. She can’t. My family life isn’t springing back to white picket fences and Sunday barbeques.” He sighs, fatigued by loss. “I’m not trying to get rid of you, I’m terrified by how close you voluntarily came to being another body on Edmund Kemper’s tally.”   
  
Holden’s lips twitch and he can’t meet Bill’s eyes. “When I came back and he was standing over you--” Holden falls short of verbal explanation. His eyes are screwed shut.   
  
Bill reaches out. Holden’s skin is clammy warm. Bill tilts his chin up. “...pull yourself together, and we’ll talk about this later. For now, just follow my lead with Wendy. Can you do that? Just hand over the reigns for once, you little shit?”   
  
There’s an embarrassed tweak of a smile, and a compliant nod against Bill’s palm. Holden is mute but seems desperately hopeful. Such a radical transformation of his exhausted features. Was it the mention of divorce? What does he even think that means, Bill wonders. Suddenly their relationship could be legitimized? Holden’s not _that_ naive. He knows there’s no chance of that, Holden said as much during one of their semi-regular meltdowns at each other. His fingers are still on Holden’s chin, and Bill suddenly wonders if Holden’s expecting to be kissed.   
  
He drops the contact a little too quickly. “C’mon, kid,” he mutters, pressing the button to open the elevator.

Holden follows obediently, only stepping ahead temporarily to pull his key out for the office’s door. It’s already unlocked. Holden tilts his head, stepping into the familiar space uncomfortably. Agents Neilson and Smith aren’t at their desks. Holden wheels his suitcase over to his own workspace, pulls his tie tight again, fixes his sleep-mussed hair.   
  
Bill listens intently to the muffled voices, failing to pick them apart. He and Holden meet each other’s eyes across the room conspiratorially, and Bill knocks on Wendy’s door.  
  
“Come in, Holden,” Wendy’s voice rings out.   
  
Bill pauses, allowing Holden side-by-side. Holden is looking up at him in the strangest, most reverent way. He opens the office door. Shepard sits opposite Wendy. He is grim, impatient.    
  
“So, which one of you wants to explain the call I just got barring the Behavioural Science Unit from interviewing at California Medical?”


	3. Chapter 3

Lying is an activity of construction and maintenance. It is constant work. A lie, alone and untended, deteriorates. Over a long enough time period, it collapses down towards the base state of reality. Like entropy. Or gravity.  
  
Wendy doesn’t like lies. She has no interest in affixing her livelihood and reputation to the unpredictable and unsustainable.  
  
In this case, no other choice presents itself. Her actions have been indefensible. To return to reality would be a massive structural failing, a demolition job. She knew about Holden’s mental frailty and sent him back into Kemper’s hands. She knew about the affair. Hell, she knew about Holden’s first unofficial and undocumented visit to Kemper’s hospital bedside.  
  
It’s simple, then. Active effort is required to fortify their position. The lie must be impenetrable, as difficult as it is to construct narrative with no coordination. So it begins. A variant on Dresher and Flood’s Prisoner’s Dilemma. The first person to sell out the other two would probably garner goodwill, and reduce their own culpability.  
  
Bill had been ready to turn Holden in, without Shepard leaning on him. But seeing them arm-to-arm like soldiers makes her sure she’s looking at partners again. Hopefully just partners. She can’t worry about that now.  
  
Holden was condemning her with his initial glare, but Shepard must have given away too much with his accusation, because he's no longer looking her way. Holden has retreated into closed consideration.  
  
Holden and Bill must be thrumming through various strategies to deceive an intelligent and preemptively suspicious superior.  
  
Bill leans in and takes the lead. He laughs. Calm and dismissive. “Is this coming from Trebezki?” 

“You mean, the Chief Warden on California Medical Facility?”  
  
“Have you seen their reports on Kemper? Their ‘model prisoner’? No shit they’re annoyed that the psycho is still a psycho, after all their high paid shrinks and their pottery classes.”  
  
She watches Shepard almost fall for the gambit. Open his mouth to argue. Close it. “How about you start your explanation with why you’re interviewing with the Behavioural Science Unit at all, Agent Tench?”  
  
“I’m not, officially. I paid for the flight. Holden was working lead. Ed just responds to familiarity. And authority.”  
  
She’s surprised that Holden keeps his cool so well at the mention of Kemper. He’d sounded borderline hysterical on the phone. Now he seems humbled, but not guilty and fearful. She tries to relax her facade too, maintain cold curiosity in her features, in case Shepard should turn his examination on her. He’ll know something is up, any second.  
  
“You had no authorization to be involved, regardless of who paid for your flight,” Shepard rebukes harshly. “Why the fuck were you interviewing Kemper at all? This unit is on an active case.”  
  
“There are incontrovertible similarities between Kemper’s murders and the Atlanta murders,” Holden supplies rapidly before Bill can answer. He’s speaking fast and hushed, as if he seeks to disappear into the ideas he offers. “According to our profiling--”  
  
“Your profiling,” Shepard interrupts, annoyed already. He doesn’t even grant Holden eye contact.  
  
“According to… my profiling, our unsub is a very similar criminal to Kemper. The crimes are unusual for their proficiency and organization. They’re being committed by an intelligent, pathologically violent but otherwise rational individual, chasing victims from within his immediate social vicinity. Like Kemper, he is stymied by poor motivation and inability to impulse control. Like Kemper, he is--”  
  
“I’ve read your goddamn profile. Why do you keep bringing up Kemper? We can compare cases without him being involved in a murder investigation.”  
  
“He has been incredibly cooperative, previously. We thought Kemper’s analysis of the crimes could provide unexplored possibilities for apprehension, or for further narrowing of our psychological profile. It also may provide subconscious insight into his own pathology.”  
  
“And you didn’t want to run your brilliant innovation in crime solving past me?”  
  
“With all due respect,” Holden begins.  
  
Wendy winces at how sarcastic he sounds, even though she’s certain Holden is pouring every ounce of acting ability he has into sounding genuine.  
  
“--we’ve interviewed Kemper many times. This was also an interview.”  
  
“Is he serious? You think treating the Co-ed Killer as an expert consultant is par for the course for the FBI?” Shepard addresses Holden indirectly still, though he’s clearly the primary object of his ire.  
  
“This time was different, sure.” Bill butts in as he’s pulling out a cigarette. Protecting Holden from the consequences of a smartass response, Wendy suspects. “Kemper wanted to talk about Kemper. We didn’t. He threw a tantrum befitting someone with such arrested emotional development. I guess we should have seen that coming.” 

“Did Holden come to you in an official capacity to request your assistance in this interview?” Shepard asks Bill. The phrasing is significant, his tone more so. Holden folds his arms, defensive, covering himself. Making a smaller target. Wendy is perturbed by how much power Bill has over Holden, given their past relationship. It would be easy for him to burn Holden. Be the smart prisoner.  
  
“No. I volunteered my time. I’d been getting updates on the case, offering whatever insights I could. I’ve been… preoccupied with this one. It feels solvable. By us, by this unit. In fact, Holden’s work on a surveillance proposal--”  
  
Wendy feels the lifeline like it’s a physical rope hoisting her forward in her seat. “Not just a proposal any more. The bridge surveillance is going ahead. Like you suggested, we toned down the specifics. I’ve been speaking to Robert Keppel--”  
  
“Who is Robert Keppel?” Shepard asks, concentration enough to displace the anger.  
  
“Seattle PD, worked the Bundy case. Now he’s been brought in on an interagency task force for the Atlanta killings,” Wendy explains. “We’re confident that our unsub will continue to use bridges as a method of body disposal. He agreed. He has the sway to begin mobilizing local teams.”  
  
“Already?” Holden asks. “I should speak to him--”  
  
“How about we keep him cooperative with the FBI for a little while longer?” Tench suggests, with a wry smile.  
  
Wendy gives a nearly inaudible chuckle. “I think he’d get along with Holden just fine, actually. He’s very ...driven. They could have an entire conversation regurgitating case files at each other and consider themselves the best of friends.”  
  
Holden rolls his eyes.  
  
Shepard steeples his fingers. “How much of our skin is in this game? If things go sideways and the local teams don’t apprehend the guy?”  
  
“It’s only a recommendation, through a… moderately unofficial channel,” Bill reassures. He’s calm, direct. Wendy thinks of a rancher stilling a mid-rampage bull. She’s never been on a ranch; the scene is lifted straight from a book she read as a teenager. She didn’t like the novel, she’s surprised by the intensity of the recollection. 

“The most recent body just floated on up. We found out mid-interview. I told Holden to take the call, and Ed took the opportunity to smash our tape recorder,” Bill adds, segueing into near-excuses. Smooth enough to slip past Shepard? “We’ve been discussing interview protocol. In future, we’ll make sure that agents are always in pairs. But for Christ’s sake, showing up with Kemper not even wearing handcuffs? What a shitshow. You can ask for restraints once you’ve arrived, and blow any chance of goodwill and cooperation, or risk interviewing that seven-foot monster with next to no protection,” Bill huffs. “Trebezki has some fucking nerve. You don’t bar the _FBI_ . May I speak with him, sir?”  
  
“I’ve already informed him, on no uncertain terms, that if we wish to conduct interviews within his prison, we will do as much,” Shepard says. A grim tweak of his lips. He shakes his head as he looks up. “You will not be calling him. You do not have authority in this unit any more. Stay in your lane, Bill.”  
  
Bill nods, dips his head. He still hasn’t lit his cigarette.  
  
“And you,” Shepard says, finally addressing Holden directly. “You better hope they catch your guy in Atlanta. And that he is the _spitting image_ of whatever ‘profile’ you concocted. You know what happens to one trick ponies when their trick stops working?”  
  
Holden nods, eyes slipping past Shepard and onto Wendy’s framed poster. Wendy remembers him bringing up Edward Hopper not long into their work together. He never struck her as a fine art aficionado, with his entirely boring suits and his perpetually unpersonalized belongings. She suspects he researched the referenced exhibition in order to have a conversational topic to breach with her. Holden’s features are wired straight, nearly paralyzed. Self-restraint. A fine virtue, learned too late.  
  
“We make _glue_ , Agent Ford,” Shepard states, unnecessarily. “I want a full incident report, including the damage done to the Bureau’s property. An exact and binding guideline for future interview procedure. My desk, Monday morning.” He leaves with no further goodbye. Wendy realizes that she’s depleted any goodwill he once held towards her. The guilty parties do not interact until they hear the elevator doors. Alone, with their shakily constructed falsehoods teetering above them.  
  
Holden crosses the office unsteadily, and sinks into the vacated chair.  
  
Bill finally lights his cigarette.

Holden speaks, eventually. “Thank you. Both of you.”  
  
“Nancy is waiting for me,” Bill says, by way of reply. He searches Wendy’s face. “I’ll get those reports to him. Better me than Holden.”  
  
She nods. Even identically dishonest, the whiff of Holden’s authorship would make the reading far more critical.  
  
Holden looks over his shoulder, waiting for something that doesn’t come. Bill steps out without a backwards glance. The smell of smoke remains.  
  
Wendy has to force herself not to ask. _How did you rope Bill into this deception? With what reasoning, blackmail, bribery?_   But she can’t allow her curiosity to get the better of her. To know is to be complicit. Even more complicit. She crosses her arms. There is only one question she can ask: “Is this going to happen again, Holden?”  
  
He seems surprised by her restraint. “No.”  
  
“I doubt Bill will cover for you so categorically again. I won’t.”  
  
“Would you like me to resign?” Holden asks, soft and earnest. “It will put you back into the black with Shepard.”  
  
She affixes him with a pinning stare. “You know that if I wanted that, I would have told him the truth about your trip to California.”  
  
“You might have felt guilty about betraying a friend. I’m offering, Wendy.”  
  
She raises an eyebrow a fraction. Is this what Holden thinks friendship is? No, stop pitying him. She doesn’t need a martyr. “Go home, Holden. I need to finish this write-up for Keppel.”  
  
He’s trying to get a look at it as he stands. “May I--”  
  
“Holden,” she warns.  
  
Holden casts down at the spread of documents, the photos of the most recent victim on her desk. A junkie eying off a closed medicine cabinet. Then he rubs his forehead. “I really should look over the most recent photos.”  
  
“I prepared a file for you. It’s in your inbox. Read it at home.” She feels like an enabler. _This is his job._  

He closes her door on his way out.  
  
Wendy sags forward, resting her forehead against the paper document wallet containing the faxed interagency surveillance proposal. Similar enough to Holden’s, not that she’d say as much. Somewhere above and far beyond, suspended like the executioner’s axe, the lie survives. For how long the stay lasts, she’s not sure. No imminence is relief enough. A spent sigh trickles out over her lips.


	4. Chapter 4

Holden calls a taxi from his desk, then trundles his suitcase towards the elevator, files fanned out one-handed. He’s already so submerged in autopsy photographs that Bill waiting by the elevator makes him jump. He nearly drops the precariously balanced papers. He can hear the elevator arriving. The conversation with Wendy must have been brief, but the weightiness felt eternal.  
  
Bill looks over at the photograph Holden is holding white-knuckled. He groans under his breath. Bill’s hand rises, to cradle his brow. His thumb and his forefinger run along the grey line of eyebrow, tugging a wrinkle of skin in and exaggerating a frown line. He looks so tired, Holden thinks, guiltily.  
  
“We don’t have to talk,” he offers.  
  
Bill scoffs at that. “Holden Ford offering voluntary silence. Satan himself must be shovelling snow.”  
  
Holden feels marginally offended and looks back down at the picture, squinting at the bloated edges of stab wounds. They are peeling open like lipstick smiles. The faxed photo twitches with phantom movement. Holden blinks rapidly. An ex-con, the file says. He doesn’t believe it’s important personally, but demographically. His abduction method is evolving. A lie complex enough to lure in an adult stranger? Drugs. The promise of a paycheck. Maybe just the offer of a lift, if these men were broke enough to be relying on busses. Holden thumbs through the file to look for any eye witness sightings, and try to extrapolate the time of abduction. A piece of paper flutters away from where it was tucked underneath the file.  
  
Bill steps away. “Would you like me hold the door for you?” he asks, bemused, from within the open elevator.

  
Holden scoops up the paper and pulls his suitcase in after him. He leans against the wall, reads the note intently. Must have been in his inbox beneath the Atlanta victim file. His vision takes a moment to settle on the neat, utilitarian handwriting. Wendy. Saying he had a call from People regarding his profile on the Atlanta Child Murderer.  
  
That moniker is hardly accurate any more, with the adult victims racking up.  
  
He squints at the capitalized first letter. _People? Which People?_ Oh, the magazine.  
  
The note starts eloquent, but ends with the most reductive of summations. ‘Good press=Funding’. Why, thank you, Ms. Academia. Holden could have figured that one out on his own. He’s surprised enough that Wendy wants him near a journalist. He’s listened to her bemoaning budgetary concerns, but never with full attention. With how readily round one of funding came, attaining future financing seem trivial. Perhaps not, if she wants him off on a spree of public self-absorption. _The note was written before Bill came to her and informed her I was a headcase_ , Holden surmises. _When she thought I’d make for a competent and self-aggrandizing interviewee._ He wants to do the interview, simply to spite Shepard, and make himself irreplaceable to the burgeoning unit.  
  
It’s just as likely to make him rapidly unemployed. 

He’s drawn back out of daydream by Bill: “I was joking. You don’t have to cower in silence.”  
  
Holden looks over at Bill, then folds away the note inside the prepared file. He registers that Bill hasn’t pressed anything except the close door button. Aren’t you supposed to be rushing away to Nancy? Or was that excuse to get away from Wendy, and not him. “Okay,” he says, simply, evaluating Bill closely.  
  
Bill scratches his jaw. “Can I let you go home alone, Holden?”  
  
Holden sighs as he puts it together. “I’m not going to be doing anything dramatic tonight. I’m going to eat some take out and sleep on a bed that isn’t a crummy motel mattress,” Holden reassures.  
  
“Do you really need to add on ‘tonight’?” Bill asks, frustrated.  
  
“I can’t realistically promise nothing dramatic will happen in future. Being an FBI agent.”  
  
“Don’t get cute, Holden,” Bill says, seriously. He steps forward. “What you said before in this elevator was not a fucking joke. You know, one of my friends in the forces killed himself. He blew his head off with a shotgun. He’d only been out a couple of years. Now you’re walking around with a loaded firearm...” Bill grits his teeth.  
  
Holden swallows hard. Processing it out. Bill didn’t bring it up before. Is it a lie? Then he feels like an awful person for doubting him. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“It wasn’t a joke, was it?” Bill asks unhappily, rubbing his frown lines again. “I’m sorry I said that shit in Vacaville, Holden. I couldn’t survive it, if I thought I encouraged you to-- to do something to yourself.”  
  
“You saved my job, remember?”  
  
“It’s a _job_ , Holden. You can’t be that ready to kill yourself over a fucking job.”  
  
Holden nods in absentminded agreement. “Nancy’s waiting,” he prompts gently. He steps forward, hitting the ground floor button with an elbow. He has to summon up courage for the next words. “I’m seeing a mental healthcare professional. I’m not your responsibility, Bill.”  
  
“It’s not about responsibility, Holden. It’s about what I can, and can’t survive happening to you. You’re deliberately misunderstanding me. Just… just consider it completely self-serving, if that helps you align my actions to your miserable worldview.”  
  
Holden frowns at him. “Helping me at your own professional expense is not self-serving.”  
  
“I promise you that it is.”  
  
The elevator doors open. Holden is deep in thought. The taxi will probably be half an hour yet, but he’ll wait outside, at security. Save the driver hassle. “You were fantastic in there. With Shepard. If you need anything for the report, you have my home phone number, don’t you?”  
  
“Somewhere, sure. Will you be in the office tomorrow?”  
  
A Sunday. He’d be the only one in. He shrugs, and hefts the case up to carry it down the short front staircase. The weight of the borrowed cold case documents inside make it a strain, but he hides that from Bill. 

“Shepard isn’t going to be happy with you, Holden. No matter how hard you work, no matter what you achieve. Stop angling for recognition from him. Revolutionaries are never popular with entrenched custodians of power.” Bill has finished his cigarette. He looks for an ashtray, walking off without excuse and continuing his thought abruptly when he returns. “If you were any less brilliant, he would never stand for any of this postmodernist sociological crap.”  
  
“Is that what this study is?” Holden asks, but he trips over the words. He turns over the compliment in his mind (it is, isn’t it? To be called _brilliant_ must be a compliment) and then the advice.  
  
“Fine line between academic drivel and cutting edge investigative methodology. All depends on successful application. If I were you, I’d hope that you have a strong showing in Atlanta.”  
  
“Is this what it’s going to be like forever? Every success continuously overshadowed by future uncertainty?” Holden asks, exhausted.  
  
“Chalk up a few more victories before you start getting bitchy about critique of your-- ah,” Bill finishes.  
  
Holden doesn’t understand. He looks up, and then follows Bill’s examination of the parking lot. The absence appears to him at once.  
  
No Nancy, no Brian, no car. Bill checks his watch, and then folds his arms, mouth set in a grim slash. Holden feels the need to support him, now. 

“I’ve got a taxi coming. We can split it to town.” Holden wishes he’d spent more time learning to comfort people without any loaded guns or hostages involved. You only buy enough time for the SWAT team to incapacitate them. Real relief sets in deep.  
  
Bill shakes his head, though he doesn’t necessarily seem to be opting out. He walks through the parking and down onto the empty road out of the base. Holden tugs his suitcase along behind him. How do you talk down a man reeling with an impending divorce? He’s not the man for the job; barely an hour ago he was elated by the revelation of the split. He’d thought that Bill would feel less guilty-- that he himself would feel less constantly guilty. In that ecstatic moment, he felt that this warped knot of emotion would be completely untangled when Bill’s marriage was over. He scarcely considered the toll on Bill. His sympathy would reek of facetiousness. Holden keeps close in case the right words suddenly manifest to him. Bill shows no signs of slowing, walking past security and down the evergreen-lined exit.  
  
“Taxi,” Holden explains to the armed guard, earning a raised eyebrow and no more. He trails Bill out onto the road. “You can’t walk to--”  
  
“I know, Holden.” Bill says under his breath. “How about some of that ‘not talking’ that was on offer earlier?” Bill takes several more steps before he looks over his shoulder. “Sorry. I’m… I don’t know who I am without her, Holden. It’s been that long. I took her to prom. Her prom, I mean, not mine." He's speaking softly, looking ahead. Holden struggles to catch the words. "You couldn’t imagine how long it’s been. I still love her. More or less than back then, I don't know, but...”  
  
Holden advances closer, never close enough. They’re both wearing the same suits they interviewed Kemper in, and the weather in Virginia is far cooler than in California. The yellow sunset has dwindled to an overcast and chilling evening. There’s gusting ripples through the trees. A northerly. Holden shivers. Despite having driven this route for years, it is sinister on foot. Feels like he’s trespassing. Bill is halted dead, turned away.  
  
Holden waits for his heart to settle before he opens his mouth. “Let’s go wait by--”  
  
“Can you give me a minute? Please?” Bill asks. His deep voice is sticky with swallowed emotion.  
  
“Sure. I’ll be back at-- you know,” Holden says, twisting his fingers on the handle of his suitcase. _Don’t leave him, you useless coward. Do something. Hug him. No, not in public. Tell him you’re not going anywhere. ...like that’s what he needs to hear now. That he’s stuck with your pain-in-the-ass company._ “I’ll be there, Bill. Whenever you want… anything.”

 

 

Bill doesn’t want anything, apparently. Not conversation sitting on the curb by security. Holden reads the autopsy again and tries to coax his obsession back into absolute domination of his thoughts so he won’t be tempted to blather. Bill and his weary frown keep appearing in his peripheral vision. Nothing in the taxi either. It makes sense for the driver to take Holden home first. He pulls out his wallet to pay, curses in his head at being the one to break the respectful silence, and then addresses Bill.  
  
“I’ll grab my car and drop you--”  
  
“Taxi’s fine,” Bill says flatly, and halts any further discussion.  
  
Holden stands on the curb, cold to his core again. His suitcase rests against his knee. He watches the back of Bill’s head through the rear window until the taxi turns off toward a main road.

 

  
  
Holden sleeps hard, yet wakes tired. Six hours is more than he’d accounted for. He doesn’t get a call regarding the falsified report the next day. He goes into the empty office, follows up some questions with the doctor who performed the autopsy, resists the urge to call Keppel and interrogate him on the minutae of the surveillance operation. He leaves the nearly empty halls of Quantico mid-afternoon.  
  
He hopes Bill will call that night, and then he drinks far too much scotch and very much hopes he doesn’t call. Holden knows he’d say something stupid. No call comes. _Bill must regret wrecking his marriage over me._ The misery halts his breathing until he can dislodge the thought.  
  
He crawls into bed and hopes the intoxication puts him out before Ed’s phantom grasp arrives on his neck, before the photorealistic imagery of Bill’s corpse springs up from his subconscious. The alcohol is working. He shivers more and wraps himself in bedding. He can feel his anxieties slipping out from underneath him like tablecloth in a parlour trick. He should talk to his shrink about getting sleeping pills, he thinks, as he’s watching the stationary light fitting above his head dance a merry jig. Alongside whatever other medication would straighten out his inveterate abnormalities. Can’t fix weird, he tells himself, screwing his eyes shut. As incurable as Kemper. With that miserable assessment, he passes out.

 

 

He’s hungover on Monday, and Bill doesn’t call. Neither does Shepard. Holden takes that to mean the reports were up to standard. Not surprising. Bill resents paperwork, but his work is always sleek and eminently readable.  
  
There’s surprisingly little to do on the Atlanta case, for all his impatience. Such a wide-scale undercover operation does not spring up overnight. A few weeks of negotiating and reallocating those officers that can be spared, from what Wendy has relayed. It’s his proposal, and now he’s being cut out.

 

 

Two days later, Wendy and Holden both receive copies of Bill’s report through the internal mail service, presumably from Bill so that they can have perfectly coordinated lies. Saves Holden the awkward conversation of fleshing out what went down with Kemper.

 

 

The week passes with Holden focussing a large portion of his time on the cold case and getting nowhere.  
  
One afternoon, he drives out to for an interview with a fashionable reporter in Washington DC. He doesn’t tell Wendy about his plans, seeing as the suggestion came from her. Garner some “good press”, feed some glamorous tidbits for the housewives at home. Nothing that’s not public knowledge, or at least mostly public knowledge. His profile already went out to local law enforcement in Atlanta. Might as well be public knowledge if those loudmouthed incompetents have their hands on it.  
  
She’s very flattering, reverent in a way he’s not used to. The interview starts in her office, ends in a cosy wine bar late in the evening. She’s leaning in a lot. She unpins her hair, and lets the loose black curls settle over the lapel of her silky blouse. Holden should be interested, but he isn’t. What ‘People Magazine’ want with him, he has no idea, but he expects the story will run towards the back of a local edition.  
  
Still, Wendy will be able to send it out to whichever donors she’s courting. He wishes he could have seen how the photographs turned out. He’s never been photogenic. Too awkward for that.  
  
The next evening he sees his psychologist. He has no courage to begin unpicking anything more than his most trivial of instabilities. He brings up his trouble sleeping, but finds himself downplaying it even as she inquires further. He hates feeling defunct. She could have him locked up if she knew about his waltz into the arms of a murderous necrophile. He still hasn’t told her about Bill. Shame holds him back. Shame always holds him back. The interview with Monique was more therapeutic.

 

 

Bill doesn’t contact him over the weekend. Holden is fatigued enough to spend it all in his living room. He does his prison-esque body weight exercises in front of a corkboard of crime scene photos of stabbed teenagers. He drinks to try to sleep, but the more drunk he gets, the less control he has over his darker urges, so he puts the bottle away. He’d never considered suicide until Bill accused him of having a death wish. It always seemed that if suicide made sense, he’d simply carry it out. His parents would be hurt, but not much more than having an out of town friend pass away. He’s not involved in their lives, nor they his. Isn’t that what usually holds people back? The guilt? He wouldn’t put that on Bill, even when he was at his angriest. Holden is regaining some semblance of balance by the next Wednesday. As if sensing emotional stability, his phone disrupts his writing. He picks it up mid-ring.  
  
Before he can get his name out, Bill’s deep voice is at his ear. “Holden.”  
  
Holden is wired. He hopes that Herb and Gregg didn’t see his posture change. A covert glance confirms they’re both intent at their desks. He’s loathe to admit it, but Altar Boy is doing some decent work on the Rancho Cordova killings. “Can I help you?” Holden asks, trying for professional. His voice does not back him up. It’s squeaky, desperate.  
  
“When do you finish work tonight?”  
  
Holden’s pulse is astronomical. He can’t reply, in case he’s misunderstanding.  
  
“I want to see you.” Bill is frighteningly direct.  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“What time works for you, Holden? I’ll actually buzz up this time. Promise.”  
  
He scores white crescents into his palm underneath the table. _Finally._ Forgiveness? Maybe not that far. But finally Bill _wants_ something. “Six.”  
  
“Okay. ...we’ll talk then.” Bill hangs up.  
  
Holden puts the phone down. He shuffles some papers, makes a nonsensical note, and then excuses himself.  
  
Locked in the bathroom, he sees an unfamiliar grin. His own. Flushed, jubilant, egging him on from the mirror. He checks his watch. Less than four hours. He tries his best to temper expectations. Bill might want to yell at him, might just want an outlet for sexual frustration with Nancy so distant. Maybe a combination of the two. But he doesn’t care. _Bill wants to see me. He said so._ He splashes water on his cheeks, returns to his desk. He can barely smother his joy as he rereads an autopsy report for a sixteen year-old, Californian girl.


	5. Chapter 5

Bill sets down the pizza box in order to get a hand free. Calling up feels inefficient, and he grits his teeth as he steps back over to the phone. He’s seen two people arrive while he was walking up. The door stays open for several seconds at their tail. But, he said he would alert Holden to his arrival. The kid seemed uncomfortable with a lack of boundaries last time. He keeps hold of the habitual six pack of beer as he refers to a sheet of handwritten instructions, then dials his apartment code.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
Bill glances at his watch. He’s barely two minutes early. Holden’s being coy. “It’s me.”  
  
“Right. I’ll let you up.”  
_  
Thank you so much,_ Bill thinks sarcastically as he watches another person exit _._ He passes the concierge desk, avoiding potential eye contact with the woman he blustered his way last time. He showed his badge, when he hit a sticking point. His identity floating around makes him uncomfortable. He’s afraid of the ideas that might formulate, if she recognizes him. He risks a side glance as he pushes the security door closed behind him. She’s reading underneath the counter. He summons the elevator, shaking the tension out of his back as he steps inside.

 

 

Holden forgets to play it cool and he answers the door immediately when Bill knocks. He realizes the giveaway, twitches with annoyance that’s obviously self-directed. He’s still wearing his work clothes, though the shirt is open a couple of buttons. He looks absurdly handsome in the softer lighting. The dumb Jehovah’s Witness haircut is ruffled. Holden looks less Ken Doll smooth around the edges.  
  
“Hey. I brought some dinner.”  
  
Holden’s perplexed look is exactly what he figured he’d earn with the pizza. Still, he didn’t feel right showing up empty handed to whatever this is.  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
“Don’t mention it,” Bill says, exhausted by the social nicety. He heads past Holden inside. His offerings go to the counter. He stops there, trying to get his nails under a glossy, forest green business card. He has to hold it close to read the small text. Getting old. The reading glasses may well become a permanent fixture at work. “Who is Monique Bolton?”  
  
He looks up to another wince from Holden, who steps over to try to take the card. “It’s nothing--”  
  
“People Magazine? New career trajectory, Holden?”  
  
“I meant to put that away,” Holden mutters, extending a hand.  
  
Bill doesn’t oblige, flipping the card over. There’s a contact number, and a ballpoint addition of a second number.  
  
“It was a puff piece. Wendy asked me to. Round two of funding is up. She’s trying to budget a new team member. Some… district attorney. I think. A lawyer, anyway.”  
  
“That’ll come in handy. You know, to shield you from all the lawsuits you’re going to invite talking to reporters.”  
  
Holden rolls his eyes. “It was all very by the book,” he says, but he’s beginning to look knowing.  
  
“She interview you here? What did she think of your autopsy photo centerpiece?” Bill asks, gesturing to the corkboard.  
  
Holden rounds the counter, pulling a beer through the cardboard. He’s hardly restraining his smirk as he rummages for a bottle opener. “At her office. Of course.”  
  
“Let me guess. Mid-to-late-forties. Ageing bottle blonde. Giggles a lot. Are you fucking her to get a flattering piece written on you? That’s very politically minded, Holden.”  
  
“Are you jealous?” Wendy. Monique. The question has arisen too many times for Bill’s liking.  
  
“Yes,” Bill says seriously. “She wrote down her personal number.”  
  
Holden’s not restraining his smile. He tugs a piece of pizza away, bites in ravenously. Under the white light of the kitchen, Holden looks thin. The dark circles beneath his eyes have creased and deepened. Bill still likes the amusement he sees in Holden’s raised eyebrow. “In case I remembered anything more that night. ...I didn’t call.”  
  
“Good. Can’t trust reporters.”  
  
“I should stick to straight-shooters, like FBI agents.” 

Bill pulls a face, but takes a beer too. Holden leans across to open it for him. He can’t remember Holden telling he likes beer, can’t remember when it became embedded as Holden’s drink of choice, and his regular offer to keep the kid from freezing up. “How have you been?” he finally asks.  
  
Holden shrugs. “Better now.” Too evasive for Bill’s liking. Too flattering. “You?”  
  
“Terrible. I’m gonna be a past-my-prime divorcee. Nancy’s been back at her parent’s place since last Sunday,” Bill shares. It comes freer than he expected. Holden’s wiles might have worked on him after all.  
  
“She hasn’t changed her mind?”  
  
“I haven’t asked her to,” Bill admits. “I don’t deserve her.”  
  
“Maybe not,” Holden says with a sad grin. “You should be down in the dirt with me.”  
  
Bill scoffs. “Whatever issues you have are definitely working in my favour, Holden. You’re very… you know.” He gestures over, to Holden’s nonplussed face. “Very handsome.” He barely gets the word out. “More successful than anyone so young has any right to be.”  
  
Holden is staring now. Bolted into place, the beer halfway to his lips. It concerns Bill how poorly he reacts to compliments. Holden is shell-shocked by what should be abundantly clear.  
  
“Crazy,” Holden eventually adds, darkly.  
  
“A little. Yeah,” Bill chuckles. Holden doesn’t smile. “No, Holden. You’re not crazy. You’re just--”  
  
“What, _different_ ? Sounds like my fifth grade teacher.”  
  
“I wasn’t going to say different. You’re an unusually intense person, and you’re too smart for your own good, and you’re working in an unforgiving and highly stressful environment.” Bill sighs. “You don’t have to settle for me because you think you’re too unstable for someone--”  
  
“Shut up, Bill.” 

Bill is taken aback. He doesn’t think Holden has ever told him to be quiet, even politely. Let alone ‘shut up’. It’s not that he’s offended, it just feels out of step with their dynamic.  
  
Holden breathes through his nose before he speaks. “I’m not settling for you. Fuck, I think I preferred it when you were angry at me.”  
  
“Who says I’m not still angry at you?”  
  
“Are you?”  
  
“Yeah.” _I’m still furious that you endangered your own life, Holden. That I’m trapped in so many lies for you. I’m angry at you because Nancy is divorcing me, and even though I know its not on you, I’m mad. I’m having trouble deciding which emotions are coming from a rational place, and what is just desperately trying to redirect blame off me for blowing up my marriage._  
  
Holden seems relieved. He leans over the counter separating them as he speaks.  “I didn’t think Kemper would kill me. I thought he liked me,” he says, quietly. “I thought he thought I was his friend. I know that sounds--”  
  
“Dumb? Yeah, it does. He could like you, and kill you, Holden.”  
  
“I see that.” He turns round the bottle in his hands, expression venomous.  
  
Bill watches, troubled. Holden is taking Kemper’s actions personally. “Talk me through this. You’re angry? Feeling betrayed?”  
  
“Feeling like putting a bullet through both his knees and then his skull,” Holden mutters, finishing the rest of his beer. “...he was going to hurt you,” he explains.  
  
“I believe that may have been on his agenda,” Bill suggests, but he’s distracted. Holden is protective of him? Since when?  
  
“That fat fucking-- what?” Holden asks, when Bill laughs abruptly.  
  
“You, uh, sound exactly like I did. When you were in hospital in Vacaville.”  
  
Holden thinks about that, taking another slice of pizza. He puts it down half-eaten, looks up with an entreating gaze. “You cared about me a lot. I didn’t know.”  
  
“Neither did I.”   
  
Holden hesitates, then rounds the counter. The two foot gap, plus a physical barrier, had been doing an excellent job easing Bill’s nerves. Holden is too close. Bill feels clunky and out-of-body. Holden puts his hand on his upper arm. Bill doesn’t move. “I should… thank you. For saving my job.”  
  
“Not for saving your life?” Bill asks disbelievingly.  
  
“That too,” Holden murmurs, leaning closer. “Thank you, Bill.”  
  
“Holden,” Bill warns.  
  
“Let me have my flimsy justifications, okay?” Holden jokes, though his expression is pained. He tugs Bill’s suit jacket over his shoulder. Bill doesn’t help shrug it off. “Come on. I’ve already wrecked your life. Might as well revel in some of the carnage.”  
  
“If you keep talking like that, you and I are going to have a serious problem,” Bill says in a clipped tone.  
  
At least Holden takes that on board. He stops talking. He takes his hands off Bill, starts to retreat half a step, delicate with shame.  
  
Bill grabs his arm, then his shoulders. “Your ‘flimsy justifications’ make me feel like a predator, okay, Holden?”  
  
Holden is limp, distant. “What do you want?”  
  
“Not this… 'do whatever you want to me, I’m worthless, I deserve it' bullshit,” Bill snaps.  
  
Holden’s lip curls. Thinking about saying something vicious, Bill can tell. Opts for imploring instead. “I’m sorry. I like how honest I can be with you.”  
  
“That’s not _honesty_.”  
  
“I like it when you push me around,” he says, softer. “I like not… being in control. I did mean it. Before. About owing you. And I guess I like the connotations.”  
  
“I told you, Holden. It was selfish.”  
  
Holden nods. “But if that’s true, it means you really have feelings for me. And if you really have feelings for me then why didn’t you fucking call a week ago?” His voice breaks over the last words. He forces the question out directly at the tiled floor. “You were angry, but you could have called. Jesus, Bill, why-- why couldn’t you have just said, I need some time to cool down? I need time to forgive you for almost getting me killed? Because that would have been so fucking simple and reassuring and I would have waited however long you asked me to.”  
  
“Couldn’t you read between the lines?”  
  
“That’s one reading, between the lines. Another equally plausible reading is… you regretted-- I mean, I know you regret all this, but you regretted--” Holden is struggling for words, for breath. He looks frustrated, grimacing and trying to marshall himself.  
  
“Holden, hey,” Bill hushes him. “Okay. Sorry. You’re right. I should’ve explained myself.”  
  
“You don’t owe me explanation,” Holden says. There’s crushing misery embedded deep in the sentiment.  
  
“I don’t ...owe you. But I care, okay? Which means I need to consider your mental wellbeing _without_ you trying to get yourself murdered.” Bill realizes he’s holding Holden too hard. Has to be gentler with the boy. He brushes his thumb over the bare, warm skin of Holden’s untensed bicep. “I don’t regret this, whatever _this_ is. I could have handled it cleaner, and my life would have been easier without suddenly catching feelings for a coworker but... it would have been a shame if I never learned how much you could mean to me. So I don’t regret it. I should’ve called.”  
  
“I’m so tired, Bill,” Holden whispers. Finally, he leans in, resting his cheek on Bill’s shoulder without bringing them body-to-body. “Nancy’s at her parents place, you said? You don’t need to be home?”  
  
_It’s six thirty, Holden,_ Bill almost says. That observation is obvious enough to go unstated. “You wanna sleep?”  
  
Holden just nods into the fabric of his shoulder. Bill puts an arm around him, hand between his shoulder blades. Holden whispers, “I keep imagining you dead.”  
  
“That’s funny, I keep imagining you dead. ...you’re quieter.”  
  
“Haha,” Holden says haughtily, face still buried.  
  
“C’mon, kid. Go get some rest. I’ll be here.”  
  
Holden shakes his head, laces fingers with Bill. He walks Bill back towards his bedroom, though there’s no venereal charge between them this time. Holden’s bed is neatly made up, again. Would have done well in the military, Bill thinks, as Holden is pulling his belt off, curling onto one side. Doesn’t use much space to sleep. Would fit fine on a fold-out cot.  
  
Following orders and not talking back to superiors, maybe not so much.  
  
Bill wishes, not for the first time, that he’d met Holden when they were the same age. Then again, Holden probably wouldn’t have found him very interesting at thirty.  
  
Bill shrugs his jacket off, resting it over a chair, kicks off his shoes. After a moment’s consideration, he unbuttons his collar and shrugs his shirt off. Down to just his singlet. He reclines back on the bed, wedging a pillow into the small of his back. He looks with vague interest towards a file resting on the bedside table, but the light is too dim to read without his glasses. Is he supposed to just loom over Holden all night? He sits up, tucks the pillow down, and stretches out next to Holden on top of the bedding. He rests his fingertips against Holden’s ribcage from behind.  
  
“Have you been eating properly?”  
  
No reply. Bill raises himself up to look. Holden is already asleep.

 

 

Bill doesn’t realize he was falling asleep too, until he wakes. Holden is studying him, up on an elbow, hand resting on Bill’s chest. That must be what woke him. He tries to equal Holden’s stare. The muted bedside light has since been turned off. He can’t see pupil or iris. Only the bright pricks reflected in the swimming black wetness. Holden blinks. Should be creepier than it is. Considering Holden occasionally says things that sound two-thirds of the way to being a serial killer.  
  
“How’d you sleep?” Bill mumbles.  
  
“Thank you,” Holden says in reply. It’s not an answer.  
  
Bill runs his tongue over his dry lips. “Guess I was more tired than--” and he never gets to finish mumbling out the excuse. Holden leans over and kisses him in a frantic movement. Bill worries about his bad breath, about his inability to anticipate and keep time with the kiss. His lips are being parted, roughly, bitten and skewed. Holden has hefted himself over on one arm, forcing Bill to catch Holden’s weight to stop their bodies colliding or tumbling to the floor. Bill shifts upright and tumbles them back towards the center of the bed, flipping Holden onto his back. Holden huffs with surprise. Wide beetle-carapace-black eyes glint. Bill pants above him, and then kisses him softer.  
  
“What time is it?”  
  
“Almost eleven. Ten fifty something.”  
  
Bill nods, disconcerted. Sure, he hasn’t been sleeping well, but he didn’t think he was exhausted, either. He kisses Holden again, relishing the freedom, shaking his head. His pacing is far more leisurely. “Been watching me sleep?”  
  
“I only woke.. maybe an hour ago. Showered.”  
  
Bill reaches up, brushing his fingers through Holden’s hair. It’s just damp still. He musses it, crinkling with a smile at Holden’s twitch of discomfort. “Where’s the light switch?” 

Holden gestures vaguely over towards the bedside table. Bill crawls over and fiddles it on, and then looks at Holden. Holden is lying flat on his back, head turned ninety degrees to regard Bill. Bill doesn’t give him much time to conduct his analysis. He shuffles back over, glancing down at Holden’s familiar light blue pajama pants. He’s seen them too often to be just the one pair. Were they were bought in a pack of three, or does Holden just only buy the most plain and familiar clothing he can possibly find? Bill leans down, taking a handful of fabric at each thigh, tugging them down. They’re loose, slipping off Holden’s hips, though he jolts and his hands fly down to try to stop the slide.  
  
“...I thought you didn’t want to be in control,” Bill prompts.  
  
Holden’s hands fall away peacefully to the sides, but his expression remains on edge. He shudders a breath in, and he eases his hips up to lower the band of sky blue cotton. Satisfaction nudges up from Bill’s abdomen, settling into the hinges of his locked jaw. 

He pulls the item of clothing off, tosses it onto the floor.  
  
Holden tries to sit up, and Bill puts a hand on his chest to stop him. He leans in over Holden and peels off the slightly sticking tshirt, sending it in the direction of the other abandoned clothing. Their legs are laced now. Bill can see Holden hard through the white briefs. He spreads out his fingers, digging in to the upper ribcage, trying to feel his pulse. Holden’s heart is kicking against his palm. He doesn’t need an EKG to read the boy. He pushes Holden back onto the bed, and then steps back.  
  
Holden’s work clothes are nowhere to be seen. He’s looking for a tie, but his own is downstairs on his backseat (he came straight from Quantico) and he can’t be bothered breaking the moment to ask or go searching in the orangey blackness in the wardrobe’s corner of the room. He sees Holden’s belt where it was dropped earlier. He carries it back over to Holden’s receptive form.  
  
There’s a flicker of concern from Holden, a shiver of tension up his bare stomach and around the juts of lower ribs. He has lost weight, Bill's certain.  
  
Bill loosens his grip on the leather, then tosses it on the bed. He’s suddenly afraid that Holden’s been hit with a belt at some point in his early life. Never really asked Holden much about his relationship with his father. He doesn’t want to make assumptions.  
  
But Holden raises his hands, crossing his wrists near the headboard. It’s an offer, but a sarcastic one. There’s smirk on his face. _Tell me you liked doing it. Admit it._ It keeps Bill pissed off while he straddles Holden, makes a loose loop and then buckles the knot tight. It occurs to him then that Holden just played him. Holden wants him angry. He’s not certain if it’s for his own benefit.  
  
“Is that--” he starts to ask, brushing his fingers over the line of leather meeting Holden’s skin.  
  
Holden nods abruptly, completely at attention. Bill hisses between his teeth at how sharp the arousal is. Desperate like a starvation pang. And there is a feast laid out before him.


	6. Chapter 6

Bill towers above him, taking his time.  
  
Holden doesn’t appreciate that. His adrenal systems are in overdrive, and he’s shaking with unutilized energy. He tugs on the leather belt, muscles flexing on either side of his temple. He could probably worm his way out of it, provided he had an inattentive captor. Holden’s mind drifts over to the woman bound up in Wichita. Ada. Ada… Jefferson. Jeffries. Everything about bedrooms, bindings, even middle-aged white men like Bill, feels like a callback to a violent homicide. That ugly tinge should make Holden reluctant or afraid. Instead, the association floats above his conscious mind idly, like thistle on a still afternoon. Like he’s on crushed grass examining the atmospheric conditions.  
  
Bill is holding his elbow. Bill’s hand has a light callous around the pads of his palm. Golf, Holden thinks, lips parting with a fond grin. Bill seems to take that the wrong way. He drops the touch on Holden. He’s skittish, Holden deduces. Concerned about judgment being levelled his way.  
  
Holden opens his mouth to reassure, but he can’t think of a poignant sentiment. Instead he says: “Please.”  
  
Bill smiles wryly at that, and it’s Holden’s turn to feel chagrined.  Bill leans closer, sitting on his heels, some weight left on Holden’s thigh.  
  
“Please what?”  
  
Holden flushes down his hunched neck. He’s not sure what he wants. Putting it into words would be prostrating himself further before Bill. He’s happy to feed into Bill’s power trip, to his own ends, but he’s not even sure what Bill feels for him. He can’t ignore the chasm split apart by the miserable week without contact, or tune out all the spiteful words spat his way before that. Bill takes issue with the silence. Bill doesn’t care for suspects failing to answer questions. Holden’s noticed it many times, even considered restraining his partner’s ire. Sometimes there’s more in what doesn’t get answered than what does. Patience earns far more than any other interrogative technique. Especially with personal interviews.  
  
Bill takes hold of his chin, forcing eye contact. There’s no vulnerability above him.  
  
Holden’s mouth tightens in the corners before he answers. “Please, as in, do you really think I couldn’t get out of a poorly tied leather belt? _Please_.”

Bill nods thoughtfully. His hand rises, comes down in a half-strength backhand against Holden’s defiantly raised cheek. The slap is loud. Holden’s face turns with it.  
  
“Are you _really_ in a position to get mouthy with me?”  
  
It stings without ever approaching real pain. But it is humiliating. And it proved Bill’s point. Despite the instinctive yank against the bindings, Holden has remained in place. Bill’s calloused palm rubs Holden’s chin, thumb brushing apologetically across the Holden’s lower lip.  
  
“Would you like to try again, nicer?”  
  
“Bill,” Holden warns, injecting some threat into his tone.  
  
Bill’s smug grin doesn’t budge. Not intimidated in the slightest. _Of course he isn’t. He thinks I’m easy prey._ Bill reaches down to press his hand up between Holden’s thighs. Holden grinds upwards, then hisses between his front teeth, frustrated with his own transparency. Bill rubs roughly through the fabric, until Holden is betrayed again by an involuntary grunt of pleasure. There’s a wet point in the tented fabric, against the harsh palm heel. Then Bill stops dead. Holden stares up impatiently, chest heaving.  
  
“I should make you pay for the trials you’ve put me through, Holden. You might want to think about that. Be a bit more polite,” he huffs. Holden can see plainly that he’s short of breath, pupils dilated with arousal.  
  
The veiled threat has Holden’s remaining sanity slipping. His now untouched cock is twitching for attention in his smeared briefs. _Like you need any excuse to hurt me._ Holden flexes and tries to get his feet flat on the bed, as if preparing for defensive maneuvers. But he’s not going to fight Bill. It wouldn’t end well for him. “Go on. Make me pay.” 

Holden’s shifting posture must give away his theoretical tactics, because Bill is suddenly much closer. He’s off his heels and onto his knees, until his weight is on Holden, crushing his hips into the bed. Holden’s completed the FBI self-defence training, though he never particularly excelled. It was jumble of karate, grecian wrestling, even some jiu jitsu. Most of it centered around disarming opponents and subduing them without a real struggle. He’s aware he has nothing compared to military boot camp, especially nothing compared to active duty.  
  
On top of that, Bill strikes him as a college wrestler. His body weight is ruthlessly placed, and Holden cannot breathe as deeply with the weight across his chest. Bill is now very close, his lips light on Holden’s neck, nudging his head to the side and brushing the shell of his ear.  
  
Holden is pliant with the thrill.  
  
“Thinking about doing something clever?” The growl barely breaks audible.  
  
Holden swallows. He can feel Bill’s erection digging into his inner thigh. “Not clever, per se,” he mumbles, breath dragged down between syllables, spurts of oxygen to keep him somewhat aware.  
  
“Time to stop being clever, and try being polite,” Bill advises, though his lips are at Holden’s jaw, a snarling kiss. “Maybe a couple more of those ‘please’s? What do you think, Holden?”  
  
“‘ _Please’_ stop asking me stupid questions?”  
  
Bill hisses and a hand wraps around Holden’s throat. He doesn’t squeeze at all, just keeps Holden’s head turned, unspoken threat mounting. Now he kisses all the way up Holden’s jaw and whispers into his ear again. “I’m letting you bait me. Again. You manipulative little masochist,” he murmurs, though the words are fond enough. “You’re not getting it that easy, boy.”  
  
“...please,” Holden murmurs, trying to rock his hips up against Bill’s weight, against Bill’s belly, anything he can find purchase on. He’s pinned. Not an inch of space.  
  
“After all that mouthing off, you think that’s going to cut it?” 

“Bill. Seriously. I need--”  and Holden squeaks the last syllable, because Bill’s fingers tighten.  
  
“Need or want? If you’re going to be better than the people you study, you’re going to have to learn some impulse control, Holden.” He continues to choke Holden as he lectures. The hold is much less harsh than last time, neatly directional to cut off Holden’s blood supply to his brain. Bill’s not drunk, and this anger seems to be cold, malignant resentment rather than whatever fire left those bruises last times. It’s calculated and relentless.  
  
Holden’s fingers spasm outstretched past the slats of his headboard, feet scrabbling to try to raise even one knee.  
  
And then Bill releases, and Holden’s vision returns in white recurrent firework patterns. He pants into his own arm, feeling fledgling biological terror. There’s parallel sexual thrill, too. He’s appalled at himself, for a lucid second. Then their lips meet, and he’s being kissed soft and forgiving. Just parted, wet enough to hear the minute snick of tension being formed and broken as they brush against each other.  
  
Bill’s weight is all between his legs, rutting against him dry. Now Holden can wrap his leg around most of Bill’s weight, though he hasn’t the flexibility to rest it over Bill’s hip. He loved it when Debbie did that, wrapping her legs behind his back, tugging him in deeper.  
  
“Bill, I lov--”  
  
And Bill is still kissing him, but the chokehold is back. He tries again, whispering through the pressed windpipe.  
  
“I love--” and Bill silences that attempt with a rougher kiss, pushing Holden’s lips apart.  
  
Bill’s tongue is in his mouth and he almost bites down out of annoyance. His world tinges out with nothingness, the only thing he’s aware of is the way Bill is biting his lips and his own heartbeat in his obstructed carotid. Tapping away desperately, asking permission to pass through the blockade.  
  
“Tell me you want to live,” Bill whispers against his lips. “Come on, Holden.”  
  
Holden doesn’t understand at first. _You’re the one with your hand wrapped around my fucking neck._ But Bill doesn’t sound taunting or menacing. He sounds desperate. Holden tries to suck down a breath to speak, and he can't. “I do,” he rasps.  
  
There’s a stifled, unhappy laugh. Holden’s eyes are screwed shut, but even his hearing is distorted by oxygen deprivation now. Like he’s at the bottom of a deep, cold well.  
  
“Beg. Beg me for your life.”  
  
He can’t feel his heartbeat any more. He’s hit the icy water at the base of the well. Fear drenches him. “Bill. Stop it!” Holden gasps. Bill does, immediately. He is upright, weight off Holden at once. There’s panic in his eyes. Panic and, bizarrely, what Holden thinks is relief. 

“Are you okay--”  
  
“It’s fine, I’m fine,” Holden whispers rapidly, though his heart is pounding and he can’t stop wildly staring up at Bill.  
  
“I’m sorry, I--”  
  
“I love you. ...I promise you I’m not going anywhere,” Holden says abruptly.  
  
Bill is too still, for too long. He is uneven, singlet untucked, lips hanging apart. Holden is already wallowing in regret when the older man reaches out to hold his cheek. “I-- fuck. I love you too. Don’t you ever, ever pull that Kemper bullshit again. Don’t you go anywhere, Holden.” 

Holden’s eyes swim. He forces them shut, trying to will away the tears. He feels Bill’s breath on him before his lips, and then they’re kissing again. Softer, but with a similar urgency.  
  
Bill’s body isn’t pinning him to the bed anymore, but they’re in contact entirely. Holden is still hard, though he’s pretty sure Bill isn’t. He tries to keep his body malleable to Bill’s liking, letting the older man dominate the pace of the kiss. He’s composing the pleading words he thinks Bill would want to hear when Bill shifts his hips. Holden is relieved to feel his renewed erection. He nudges Bill’s chin up, kissing the underside of his square jaw, his Adam’s apple. He noses against the stubble with unfettered delight at the allowed access. Bill grunts with pleasure. Holden feels his underwear being tugged down. Askew, though he can hardly assist in his compromised position.  
  
Then Bill’s hand is wrapped around him. He groans into the warm skin above him at the sheer relief. Bill is stroking both of them. Not very coordinated, but he doesn’t have to be. The tenderness undoes Holden. He groans from the deep of his lungs, rising off the bed and pulling uncomfortably at his shoulder sockets as he comes. His lips bury into warm, sweat-sheened skin, inhaling the familiarity.  
  
Bill swears under his breath. Pleasure, Holden hopes, dazedly. Bill pushes himself upright, resting one hand on the wall behind Holden’s bed, continuing to pleasure himself. He's still mostly clothed, in the underclothes and his work pants, but Holden can see a vital flush on Bill's neck and arms, sweat appearing like flickering constellations over the broad shoulders. He stares up, drinking in the sight, and then realizes what’s about to happen and screws his eyes closed. Only the slick sound to fill his imagination, and Bill’s ragged panting.   
  
The closed eyes are a needless precaution. A splash reaches his chin, his left cheek, but no higher. Mostly on his neck, pooling around his clavicle. He can feel the warmth where it landed. His cheeks burn when he realizes he likes the feeling. Bill’s weight is no longer on him, a muffled thud of Bill falling back to where he’d earlier slept.  
  
Holden opens his eyes, tilts his head a cautious fraction to look over at where Bill is laying. He’s met with a sated, smug grin. 

“Can you--” Holden starts to instruct.  
  
“Shh. Just. Let me just remember this,” Bill mumbles. “For the next time you get on my nerves in front of Wendy and Herb--”  
  
“Bill,” Holden says sharply, cheeks flaring red again.  
  
“You look good. Really. I could get used to that sight.”  
  
Holden stays flushed. Now he puts serious effort into trying to escape the belt. He forms fists, twisting back and forth to earn some leeway within the bindings. He hopes he doesn’t warp the leather. Bill notices at once, chuckles under his breath. It takes Bill one moment of concentration have it loose. Holden rubs his wrists, checking pallor, dexterity. Fine, despite his inattention. He wouldn’t have noticed if both hands went necrotic with blood loss. He doesn’t sit upright, too worried about what would drip to his mostly clean bedding. He stretches over for a tissue, ignoring Bill’s obvious amusement. He gets most off his face, his neck, and then wipes his own drying mess off his belly.  
  
“I need another shower,” he complains under his breath. He perfects a resentful scowl. No need to give Bill additional fuel by appearing pleased.  
  
“Come back. Straight back.”  
  
Holden tries to repress the smile as he clambers upright. He fails worse this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (please nobody ever do BDSM like these two closeted repressed idiots and please never do breathplay like these two closeted repressed idiots)


	7. Chapter 7

A phone ringing impinges Bill’s concentration writing up analysis of recruitment strategies. He doesn’t recognize the number, but his secretary has long since gone home, so he takes the call himself. It’s late, which means this will either be frivolous, or highly important. He’d prefer important. An excuse to work longer and spend less time in the motel room he’s been living in the past few days while he searches for an apartment.   
  
Nancy reclaimed the house, and Bill had retreated in perfect step out of his comfortable, wholesome, former life.  
  
“This is Special Agent Tench.”  
  
“Hello, Special Agent Tench,” comes Holden’s unmistakable, smiling voice.  
  
“How’s Atlanta?”  
  
“Chaos on a biblical scale.” There’s hesitation before his next words: “It’s not going well.”  
  
“What isn’t?”  
  
“Any damn thing I put my name to,” Holden mutters, cheer gone. “The local boys think I’ve flown out here to defend the honor of the Ku Klux Klan. Especially the African Americans.”  
  
“A lot of magazine readers in the police force?”  
  
Holden groans, the low note crackling through the phone line. “Do you want to lambast me for that too?”  
  
Bill chuckles. He has a copy of People sitting in one corner of his desk, the first time he’s ever purchased the magazine. He flips it open, the creased pages parting naturally to the singular well-read article. “You look very handsome.”  
  
“Bill,” Holden reproaches. Bill can pick up an irresistible vulnerability. Holden’s next words are mingled with the exhausted breath he’s blowing out. “I need you here.” Before Bill can take the compliment, it’s followed up with utilitarian motive: “They’d respect _you_.”

“You’re too obsessed with respect, Holden. Cart follows horse. If your work earns you respect, so be it. Focus on what is in front of you.”  
  
“There’s nothing in front of me except for a cold stone wall. Their mistrust of me is impenetrable. Every defence is up, and until we catch this man I can’t prove myself or support my hypothesis in any meaningfu--”  
  
“So quit trying to do that.”  
  
“The FBI isn’t formally involved with this ground level operations, which is precisely what I’m seeking to assist. I can’t officially intervene. I need them to want my help. And it is abundantly clear that nobody, especially not that smug prick Keppell--”  
  
“I thought we liked Keppell.”  
  
“Wendy likes him well enough,” Holden answers tight-lipped.  
  
“I take it surveillance measures have veered away from your proposal.”  
  
“His plans went through committees, were bounced up and down the hierarchies and in every which way around every disjointed agency with any tangential involvement in the case. He might as well have written his plan on fliers and distributed them on street corners.”  
  
“You think your guy is going to catch wind of it?”  
  
“It would be a miracle if this escapes the press' attention. And then he will find a new dump site, and we will be at square one.”  
  
“Well, if _you_ can’t lecture law enforcement about keeping a lid on the inner workings--” he stops mid-sentence as the phone line clicks. Bill returns to his work, shaking his head.   
  
Five minutes later, his phone rings again.  
  
“Sorry,” Holden huffs out. 

“You’re forgiven,” Bill says gently. He’s staring at the magazine still. “...you mentioned me by name in the article. Thanked me. Even though, at the time, I hadn’t called you. You thought you and I were-- well, I don’t know.”  
  
“If you really did, for some reason, read the stupid interview, you’d know I was prompted. She asked me how I ended up where I am. The answer was-- _is_ you.”  
  
“I’m not one to give much consideration to ‘what if’s and alternate realities. Still, it seems clear that without me you would have still ended up in some iteration of your current role.”  
  
“I would have ended up murdered by Edmund Kemper, I think.” 

Bill’s smile drops. If it’s a joke, it’s a bad one.  
  
“I name-dropped Wendy too, I thought she’d like that.”  
  
“...why did you call?”  
  
“My motel room was missing your voice.”  
  
“Just that?”  
  
“Sometimes I do act sentimentally. Without ulterior motives.”  
  
Bill sighs. “I wasn’t accusing you of-- never mind. How are you?”  
  
“Primarily, frustrated about this surveillance--”  
  
“For Christ’s sake, Holden. I mean, how are you? Please give me an answer that is not context on your ongoing feud with Atlanta PD.”  
  
Holden goes quiet for a long time. “Tired. I haven’t been sleeping well, and even when I do, I’m ...tired. Still. I’m better.”  
  
Bill isn’t reassured. “Are you there with Wendy?”  
  
“If only. Herb.”  
  
Bill snorts. “And he’s not providing you the ...gravitas you desired?”  
  
“He’s not providing me anything. I don’t even know if he endorses my surveillance proposal, let alone the psychological profile the FBI is tabling.”  
  
“I don’t imagine he does. He really loathes you, you know.”  
  
“He can get in line behind every cop in this city. ...we’re in separate motel rooms. He’s paying, out of pocket, to avoid me as much as possible.”  
  
“There were times when I considered doing that.”  
  
“Lucky you, you no longer have an imperative to spend any time with me whatsoever.”  
  
“Sheer luxury. ...when do you get back?”  
  
“I’ll be back on Thursday night.”  
  
“I could pick you up from the airport.”  
  
“...you could? Is Nancy still--”  
  
“I said I could, Holden. Take it or leave it.”  
  
“I’ll be flying with Herb. We should meet at my place. I get in-- hang on.” Holden is away from the phone for a time. “I won’t be home ‘til past ten. Is that too late?”  
  
“Not if I can stay the night.”  
  
“Of course,” Holden acquiesces. There’s an uncharacteristic tenderness in the words. Or maybe it is characteristic, and he just hasn’t got used to this Holden. They’ve seen each other several times in the past few weeks, mostly dinners together, sometimes Bill staying the night. They’ve kissed, had less combative sex, grown familiar. Bill is still disconcerted by it all. 

There’s a lengthy break in conversation before Holden speaks again. “My mom called me. Someone at her church told her about the article.”  
  
Bill’s fingertips go to the colour photograph, tracing the uncertain, charming smile. Holden needs more people in his life to be proud of him. If he had personal sources of external reinforcement, he wouldn’t be burning himself out seeking affirmation from the entire fucking world. “Did she have an opinion on your profile?”  
  
“She doesn’t follow the news much.”  
  
“But she must have been excited to see her son doing so well.”  
  
“I don’t know what she was. She thinks it’s… she thinks there’s something wrong with me, that this is what I’m giving my life to. I mean, she didn’t come out and say it. She’s asked me about how things were going with Debbie.”  
  
“Well, she’s your mother, Holden. She wants you to be happy.”  
  
“I told her we had broken up.”  
  
Bill pauses, uncomfortable. From Holden’s tone, telling the truth about the matter had been a weighed decision. Holden lies very casually. Then Bill feels like a hypocrite. He lies plenty too. Holden probably doesn’t want to make his mom worry. “I should go. I’ll see you Thursday.”  
  
“Okay,” Holden says, simply. He hangs up before Bill has a chance to say anything sappy. Bill grimaces, and goes back to picking through Holden’s interview.  
  
’This isn’t about magic or telepathy, it’s heuristics. That is, statistical analysis of the sorts of crimes being committed, and the sort of people committing them. Specific human impulses lead to specific human behaviour. A crime scene is not a random tragedy, but the result of someone’s behaviour. And the more crimes we solve, the more criminals we interview, the bigger the pool of data. I believe that one day, the information linking individual psyches and crime scene specifics may be as robust as our fingerprint databases.’   
  
“And you wonder why the black cops hate you,” Bill mumbles under his breath, closing the pages and putting the magazine under a stack of real work. Sounds uncomfortably close to Terry Stops.

 

 

Thursday night shuffles sluggishly closer. Bill’s impatience is implacable even the evening of, and he arrives more than an hour early for their appointment.   
  
He listens to a late night radio broadcast on Russian economic stagnation as he waits outside Holden’s apartment building for nearly another hour after ten. There are many late night comings and goings, but Holden is not among them. Eventually, he decides Holden must have arrived early, and steps inside the building’s lobby. He calls up. If Holden is in, he does not answer.   
  
He waits in the inky, penetrating darkness of his car seat for only another spat of indeterminable minutes before he angrily starts the motor. Just like Holden, to change his plans without informing anyone. Bill drives back to his motel, parking his car and trudging up the staircase to his room. The stone cold takeout he bought is dumped in the bin, and he drinks one of the beers before shoving them into the mini-fridge. His motel room stinks of cashew chicken.

 

 

He barely rouses himself for his alarm. He’s off his rhythm driving to Quantico from an unusual starting point. Staying up late waiting for a man who never arrived compounds the issue. It would have been no problem, in his youth, but he can no longer function without his customary allocation of sleep. Bill takes an incorrect exit, lengthening his commute by fifteen minutes of bumper to bumper traffic. He arrives to his office in a foul mood, and is greeted by the wide eyes of Felicity.  
  
“Good morning, sir.”  
  
“Good morning, Felicity,” he returns, warily.  
  
The phone rings, and she picks it up and asks the person on the other end to hold. “All of your messages are on your desk. Unit Chief Shepard scheduled a meeting for 9:45, I think he wants you to fly out tonight.”  
  
“Fly out?”  
  
“...to Atlanta.”  
  
Bill’s heart falls echoing down the chasm inside him. _Holden. Oh, God, Holden._  
  
“There’s a message from Holden, too. You should probably take that first, considering.”  
  
The relief makes him feel stupid. “Considering what?”  
  
“Nobody called you at home? Well, none of them have… exactly said it, but, I caught the gist through messages I’ve taken for you. They caught someone. Dumping a body.”  
  
“Thank you, Felicity,” he drags out, reeling too hard to make it sound anything more than a brusque dismissal. 

Bill is still jittery when he’s shut in his own office. He ignores the stack of messages jotted down by Felicity, and instead opens his roll of contacts, flicking through to find the number for the Atlanta office Holden is working out of. He dials the number, sure he’ll reach absolutely nobody in this moment of chaos.  
  
“Special Agent Holden Ford.”  
  
“It’s me.”  
  
“Thought I recognized your number,” Holden says, hushed. Around him are the intrusive sounds of shoes, printers, phones, voices. The still splitting debris of a victory.  
  
“I called last night. You must have already left the office,” Holden apologizes right out of the gate.  
  
“Is he--” Bill brings himself up short.  
  
“Black? How quickly that question became the tipping point that my entire future straddled. Yes. He’s black. Young. The police pulled him over three days ago when they heard something hit the water from where his car was parked. That reached me, but was far from definitive. They’ve pulled over plenty of illegal rubbish disposals. ...Then the body turned up downstream,” Holden says, unable to restrain his excitement. “You’ll see it all when you fly in.”  
  
“Did Sheppard--”  
  
“I said, our team needed you, and now that I’ve been vindicated they had no choice but to indulge me,” Holden rapid fires, the grin on the other end evident.  
  
“It’s possible you’re enjoying this a little more than is seemly.”  
  
“Bill, I--” Holden can’t finish it, floundering in his exposure. Someone behind him is reading out Holden’s profile aloud. There’s a chorus of cheers. Bill thinks he hears Herb’s voice. Holden is away from the phone telling someone to be quiet. Then there’s the fumbling brush of Holden picking the receiver up again.  
  
“I love you,” Bill murmurs, secretive, directly into the phone’s plastic mouthpiece as if it were the shell of Holden’s ear.  
  
Holden exhales. “I do too.” More explicit words would give them away. To Bill, it reveals everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hellllllo everyone who read this work at all, especially those who followed me through like 50k words. Let me just say a huge thank you to everyone who left kudos and especially those who commented and helped me get everything figured out and motivated me.
> 
> I think... it's.... done...


End file.
